


I will wait, unleashed and unheard

by tigriswolf



Series: randomass prompts [11]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-19
Updated: 2011-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-26 06:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some stories have been around for as long as people’ve had language. Wolves weren’t called wolves then, and sheep didn’t quite exist yet, but the wolf in sheep’s clothing?   It’s an old tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I will wait, unleashed and unheard

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [无拘无闻吾将待](https://archiveofourown.org/works/596026) by [styx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/styx/pseuds/styx)



> Title: I will wait, unleashed and unheard  
> Fandom: Highlander (shades of Reign of Fire, maybe)  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Anne Sexton  
> Warnings: spoilers for the Horsemen arc  
> Pairings: mentions of Methos/Kronos  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 445  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: Like hearing a growl in the dark, but [insert name here] is the only one who knows that isn't just a bear -- there really are dragons, and it's pure luck that it's in a relatively good mood and just growled a little...

Some stories have been around for as long as people’ve had language. Wolves weren’t called wolves then, and sheep didn’t quite exist yet, but the wolf in sheep’s clothing? It’s an old tale.

Methos told it the first time, and it wasn’t a legend then. Or a strategy that won wars, that trapped even the most wary. It was just an anecdote from three camps over. From a camp that wasn’t there anymore. From the camp that insulted a canny predator and didn’t even realize it. A dozen hunters, gone. History has no recollection of them at all. Even Methos doesn’t remember them anymore.

He wasn’t Methos yet, either. Kronos had yet to be born; Kronos, the child who named the ancient. Even then, Methos was old. He doesn’t know how old—he’ll never know. Sometimes he remembers great monsters, and the dinosaur bones in museums seem familiar, but if asked, he always says five thousand years. Five thousand, he thinks, watching schoolchildren on the playground swing, is so small a number.

There are things older than wolves. More dangerous than wolves. Pestilence, Famine, and War… were just schoolchildren on the playground, and had no idea what looked at them from Death’s eyes.

Sometimes, Methos thinks he remembers monsters in the cave of his earliest days, terrific beasts of fire and wing. It would be a long time before he could put a name to those shadows, but he watches the schoolchildren on the playground and thinks back. It was after the dark time, but before the next great creatures rose up, and dragons slept in the cave. And Methos shared their warmth, gazing up in wonder.

He called himself Dragon-Slayer for a time, but it was a lie. He never once hurt a dragon. Sometimes, he hopes they’ll remember that, when they wake.

And MacLeod and Joe and a thousand other children ask questions they wouldn’t like the answers to, and Methos is more than a man, more than a wolf, more than a predator. He has killed monsters and walked with monsters and slept safe in the talons of a dragon. (Or maybe that’s a story. He is a masterful liar, you know.)

Maybe he is simply a killer hidden in the hoodie of a graduate student, maybe he’s Death walking down the halls.

Maybe he first told the story of the wolf in sheep’s skin, with the blood of a dozen hunters still drying on his hands.

He is the only being alive who is not a child on the playground, and there’s a reason for that.

(And when they wake up… Death will smile, watching them take to the skies.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fanmix: Primordial](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2698001) by [gigglingkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigglingkat/pseuds/gigglingkat)




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